Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (Book 4)
Savage Vengeance (Book 5 - this story)
VIOLENCE WARNING: The two stories in the Savage Gang saga, and especially the second story, involve a gang practicing extreme violence toward everyone — women, the elderly, the protagonist, etc. The stories contain mature sexual content and violence as well. I am placing this warning on all chapters, including those without such violence, so you can choose whether to continue.
CHAPTER 24
Beth touched her fingertips to her cheek and her stomach. The pain was gone from her body, but not from her mind. Nobody had ever hurt her as Savage had done.
She had faced tough combatants in the past, but nothing like this. Rocco Lynch and his men had challenged her, but those battles had been wars of attrition because of the sheer number of opponents. And in an earlier fight, a man known as Mantis had fought and captured her, but Mantis had needed trickery and traps to prevail. Even before that, a man named Jake Rockford had hurt her, but only because an explosion had severely weakened her.
Maximus Savage alone had been able to stand toe to toe with her. Prior to facing him, she had believed herself to be stronger than anyone on the planet by a wide margin. Perhaps she had been wrong about the size of her advantage. Savage had packed a wallop, unlike anyone she had ever faced. No! she told herself. She was stronger than him. Better than him.
But not good enough. She had been on the verge of defeating him, but he had escaped. Again. This — her failure to capture him — must be the root of her dream. The root of her insecurities. She had unrivaled power, yet she had failed twice, blowing opportunities to end the gang’s reign of terror.
She scowled, barely registering the smell of pancakes and the sound of sizzling bacon coming through the door of Stanley’s office. Mrs. Devor prepared a late breakfast in the kitchen as Beth brought Stanley up to speed on the night’s events.
“Nobody has ever hit Sapphire Angel so hard,” she said, sitting in the guest chair in Stanley’s office. “Now I realize what it’s like when I hit people. And I’m even stronger than Savage is.”
Or I am when I wear my necklace, she thought. When I’m not a fraud.
Stanley sat behind his desk, his forehead creased in worry, and studied her.
“Are you okay, Beth? Your mind seems elsewhere.”
Beth forced a smile. “Just tossed and turned last night,” she said. The damn dream came back again, she wanted to say. “I can’t get this gang out of my head. It bothers me how I let him get away again. I have this gift, these powers, and I keep letting Savage escape. Maybe if somebody else had gotten these powers, he’d be locked up right now.”
Stanley frowned. “There is nobody else. You were meant for this. You were beating him. Somebody else might not be able to say that. You’re being too hard on yourself.”
You were meant for this. The statement came from Stanley’s mouth matter-of-factly, as if it were obvious to him. As if he knew something he wasn’t telling her.
She paused, trying to read more into his words, but shook her head. There was too much at stake for her to worry about her own issues, and her own insecurities, right now.
“Maybe the fight with Savage just has me worried, and is playing with my mind,” she said. “It was almost like his punch was too much for my necklace to handle. Normally, I can feel myself healing pretty quickly. But it took a while this time.”
“Hmm,” Stanley mumbled. “Perhaps we are finding the limits of your necklace’s power.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked. “I’ve been hit by two missiles in my career. Even then I started feeling better quicker than this time. Well, I guess I did. I was unconscious under water for one of them, and for the other I was dazed and not paying attention to how fast things improved. This is the slowest recovery I can remember, though.”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you, Beth. Maximus Savage might be the most lethal fighter in this country, if not the world. All it might take is for Savage to land one well-placed blow for things to take a terrible turn next time. I don’t have to tell you how bad it could get if he holds the upper hand. He’s horribly sadistic. He would love nothing more than to make an example of Sapphire Angel.”
“I know,” Beth murmured. “I’ll be careful. Sapphire Angel has beaten him twice now. It won’t be any different the third time. Although it was weird — he seemed stronger than he was during our first fight, if that’s possible.”
“People have good days and bad days. Perhaps you caught him on a good day this time.”
“I suppose,” Beth replied. “But he’s the one who should worry. Even on his good day, I beat him. And I learned something, too. I learned, or reinforced, that not only am I stronger than he is, but I’m also much quicker, too. He’s not slow, but his agility and speed aren’t superhuman like his strength. When we meet again, I need to use that more to my advantage.”
She hoped there was a next time. Savage would never fall for a trick again, as he had done with Stanley's air-gapped computer ruse. Next time, she would need to find the gangster. Stanley, as usual, seemed to read her mind.
“Beth, I’ll keep working on locating these goons — hopefully before they overrun the city. It’s bad out there. I’ve been tapping into law enforcement channels, and they don’t know what to do. The gang has been spreading trouble faster than I’ve seen in any other city.”
“You think it’s because I embarrassed Savage in front of all those people?”
“I’m sure it didn’t help. But whatever the reason, he’s going to bury this city if we don’t stop him. Finding him isn’t enough, though. We also should talk about what happens if we do find him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how are you going to handle it if we discover the gang’s location? We can’t count on the police to help. They’re running scared. Where does that leave you? Are you just going to march right into the lion’s den, so to speak?”
“I don’t know,” Beth murmured. “Maybe I can lure them out? Or hit them when they’re not all there? You know, thin their ranks.”
Stanley frowned and leaned back in his chair. “That’s what I was thinking, too, if I can’t talk you out of this. I've studied how they operate around the country, and most of their action happens late at night. Based on my study of other cities, that is when they send most of their men out on different jobs.”
“So that would be the time to hit them.”
“Yes. That would be when many of them aren’t at their home base, wherever it is. If we can find them at the right time, there wouldn’t be as many of them at their base for you to deal with. You could thin their ranks, as you said, and then pick off the rest as they return, little by little. That’s the second best option.”
“What’s the first best?”
“You not doing this at all. But I know you’re going after them, whether or not I like it.”
As she pondered Stanley’s suggestion, a phone in her bag vibrated. She recognized the vibration pattern — it came from the phone she used to communicate as Sapphire Angel.
With Stanley watching, she rooted in the bag for several moments, fumbling past her car keys, some stray credit cards, two brushes, hair clips, a pair of sunglasses, scraps of paper, and her other phone. She found Sapphire Angel’s phone near the bottom, pulled it out, and used the passcode to unlock it. When she opened the messages app, she raised an eyebrow and bit her lip.
“What is it?” Stanley asked.
“It’s a text message from Olivia Lockheed. Supposedly.”
“Supposedly?”
“It’s not from the number I have for her. She said she’s using a burner phone to avoid being compromised. She wants to meet tonight. Says she has a lead on how to find the gang, but could use my help. She wants to trade her information for my help. She sounds reluctant, though.”
“Reluctant like you? I get the sense you’re not thrilled to work with her, either. Are you sure it’s her? She’s not using her regular phone, yet she had Sapphire Angel’s number?”
Beth blushed. Lockheed had made her obsession with Sapphire Angel clear the night she had ensnared the superheroine, so it was no surprise that the FBI woman would have the heroine’s contact details committed to memory. She hadn’t told Stanley the sordid details of that evening.
“Uh,” Beth stammered. “I guess it could be a ruse. But only a handful of people have this number, and I can’t think why any of them would impersonate Olivia Lockheed.”
“I trust your judgment, then. What are you going to do? Even if she’s hesitant, maybe you can convince her. You hold some cards here. I’ve heard she’s alienated most of the police force, so she needs you.”
Beth’s cheeks grew redder. The thought of working with Lockheed brought back the memories of her embarrassing night in the FBI woman’s clutches.
“Since we haven’t made any headway,” she replied. “I guess I’ll go see what she has to say. I’ll be careful, of course, in case this is a ruse, and it isn’t her.”
Or in case Olivia Lockheed has planned a repeat performance of her last encounter with Sapphire Angel, Beth thought.
Beth Harper and Stanley Devor weren’t the only ones frustrated by their inability to track down the Savage Gang. Wayne “the Hammer” Steele sat at his desk in a secret bunker, running a hand over his bald head.
When he had recruited his men and formed the Justice Seekers, he had done so with an eye toward going toe to toe with the Savage Gang. But he hadn’t accounted for the first hurdle — finding them. Did Sapphire Angel have these problems? By all accounts and rumors, she had fought the gang several times, always coming out on top. How had she found them?
He shook his head. She was one woman. He was the Hammer, with vast resources at his disposal. If she could find them, so could he. It just might take some time. But time was something he didn’t have, as the city crumbled around him.
Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (Book 4)
Savage Vengeance (Book 5 - this story)
Looks like we're getting closer and closer to that fabled Sapphire Angel/Olivia Lockheed team-up as we speak (hopefully)! Good on Lockheed to use a special phone in case things go awry (we already know the Savage Gang has a hand in Lockheed's department thanks to the presence of Howard Vincent), but the Gang's already proven to be very crafty on several occasions, so I don't exactly know how much that'll help her. And on Sapphire's earlier late-night encounter with Olivia Lockheed towards the end of the previous novel.....I can definitely see why she'd want to avoid letting Stanley in on that. What does she have planned this time, though, just in case Lockheed tries to have her way with Sapphire again? It clearly can't be something that roughs up Lockheed too hard, since---as tough as it is to admit it---they both need each other right now regarding the Savage Gang. I feel like the three "heroic" factions (Team Sapphire, Team Lockheed/FBI, and Team Hammer) are all trying to take down the Savage Gang for different reasons (Team Sapphire to protect the city, and now restore/avenge Sapphire's honor, Team Lockheed/FBI because it's practically their job to keep the peace, and Team Hammer because they're vigilantes), but I have to say.....if Steele also gets in on this team-up that's about to happen.....the Savage Gang are certainly going to be in for a shock. Maybe he can send an undercover representative to talk to Sapphire or something. And they can say they serve a "higher power" to keep Steele's presence and activities a secret.
All of the arcs give strong "there's a common problem to work together against, but we're having trouble putting aside our differences because there's so much infighting and grudges" vibe. Like, you all can go back to hating each other once the Savage Gang's done, guys! No reason you shouldn't be able to cooperate (at least for the moment)!
How actually important is Wayne Steele to the story? Judging by the last portion of this chapter detailing his struggles at locating the Gang, I see him as either A) the leader of a third faction who's in over his head and hopelessly outmatched against the Savage Gang next to Sapphire and/or Lockheed, B) some rough "comic relief" dude who has misfortune after misfortune tracking the Gang throughout the entire novel and is there purely for entertainment, C) someone who's actually way more calculating and badass than he lets on, D) secretly in line with the Gang and some kind of front for them, or some combo. Or E) someone who eventually does join up with the heroes after suffering failure after failure and acknowledging that Sapphire and Lockheed's teams are better than his. Can we have E, please? xD
At any rate, let's keep going!